1,000-job center (maybe Amazon) seeks incentive cash

Miami-Dade County commissioners this week were being asked to approve up to $300,000 in job incentive funding for a confidential 1,000-job company expansion into Opa-locka for a company rumored to be Amazon.

The Beacon Council, the county’s economic development organization, brought the project before the commission for approval of the incentives. The state would pay $1.2 million in incentives as well if 500 of the jobs were created over a four-year period along with the projected $198 million capital investment.

While the site of the company’s high-tech fulfillment center was not stated in the application that went to county commissioners for their vote, the likely site is beside the county’s Opa-locka Airport on 120 acres owned by the county that are leased to the Carrie Meek Foundation.

Amazon already has a 300-employee center west of Doral and another is in the works.

While the application lists 1,000 new jobs, incentives would only be paid on the first 500. As long-standing state legislation spells out, the state would oversee the creation of jobs in accord with its agreement and after the jobs were created paying at least 115% of the state’s average wage. It would then notify the county of its obligations to pay 20% of the total while the state pays 80%.

As is typical of Beacon Council applications for incentives, this one is given a code name for commissioners to act on: Project Sol.

The application says that the employees functioning in the warehouse and distribution space would receive an average annualized salary of $50,675, plus employee benefits averaging $7,601.

The center itself would have more than 855,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space. Construction would begin in the second quarter of 2017 with operations beginning in the second quarter of 2018.

5 Responses to 1,000-job center (maybe Amazon) seeks incentive cash

Ben Grimm

September 7, 2016 at 10:07 am

Amazon is already looking to cut their workers to half time so they don’t have to pay them benefits. Are we really going to subsidize this kind of business?

Maybe we can just subsidize everyone to build and operate here. It’ll be like social security for corporations.

Pancheta

September 8, 2016 at 4:17 pm

Please contact me

Jose

September 9, 2016 at 3:16 pm

Can we get a little dose of reality. Everyone wants the big high tech jobs to come here, but the truth is Florida Universities cannot compete with the likes of Georgia Tech, Duke and Stanford.

We complain that we are not getting high paying industries but we just don’t have the universities for it. Low taxes is not the only incentives. UM, FIU, FSU, UF, etc. are not close to being UCLA or UNC.

When our schools are as good as those than you see those companies here. Don’t complain about the type of companies and industries that are want to open for business here. Second rate universities attract low paying industries.